Diversified genetic and transcriptional changes in parallel evolved Escherichia coli populations for improved growth revealed that the evolution complementing genome reduction was like all roads leading to Rome.

A near-complete flux balance analysis model of a minimal cell demonstrates the high essentiality of its metabolic genes, agrees well with experimental essentiality data and suggests some further gene removals.

Modeling all the chemical reactions that take place in a minimal cell will help us to understand the fundamental interactions that power life.